'We're all in shock': Montreal stunned by Applebaum's arrest and the latest in series of scandals

Michael Applebaum arrest: Montreal stunned by latest scandal

MONTREAL – Seven months ago, as Michael Applebaum made his pitch to be named interim mayor of Montreal, he described the effect of the endless scandals that had led to Gérald Tremblay’s recent resignation.

“Today, and for some time now, Montrealers have slumped shoulders. They are disappointed. Worse some are even embarrassed to be Montrealers,” he told his fellow city councillors just before they voted to make him mayor.

On Monday, shoulders slumped a little further and the embarrassment deepened with news that Mr. Applebaum had been arrested and is facing 14 corruption-related charges. The man who had claimed to be squeaky clean was shown on television arriving at provincial police headquarters in the back of an unmarked police car.

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Robert Lafrenière, head of the provincial anti-corruption squad known by its French acronym UPAC, announced the news at a news conference. “Today UPAC proceeded with significant arrests related to cases of presumed corruption,” he said. “One of the people arrested, an elected official, is the current Mayor of the city of Montreal.”

The anti-corruption squad has arrested other mayors since it was created in February 2011. In May, Gilles Vaillancourt, who ruled over the Montreal suburb of Laval for 23 years, was arrested on charges including gangsterism. But for the sitting mayor of Quebec’s largest and Canada’s second largest city to join the ranks of the allegedly corrupt was stunning.

The charges against Mr. Applebaum — fraud toward the government, breach of trust, conspiracy and municipal corruption — relate to two real-estate developments in the borough of Côte-des-Neiges-Nôtre-Dame-de-Grace between 2006 and 2011, when he was mayor of the borough. Saulie Zadjel, a former councillor from the borough who ran for the federal Conservatives in 2011, and Jean-Yves Bisson, a former municipal bureaucrat, were also charged in connection with the deals.

Police did not identify the projects, but they said they involved bribes valued in the tens of thousands of dollars. Court documents reveal that Mr. Applebaum is alleged to have conspired with two businessmen active in real estate in the borough and with his then chief of staff to defraud the government. In a second project, he is alleged to have conspired with engineer Rosaire Sauriol and former Laval city manager Claude Asselin, both of whom were already facing corruption-related charges.

Marvin Rotrand, a long-time city councillor who served alongside Mr. Applebaum in Côte-des-Neiges-Nôtre-Dame-de-Grace, said he does not believe the charges and neither do many residents of the borough with whom he has spoken. “We’re all in shock,” he said. “This is out of character for a guy who has a distinguished career and who has been touted as a by-the-book type of guy.”

The disbelief is understandable, but there were signs that not everything was by the book in Mr. Applebaum’s domain. Police have raided both the main city hall and the Côte-des-Neiges-Nôtre-Dame-de-Grace borough offices this year. In March, Robert Rousseau, a senior manager in the borough, committed suicide a day after being interviewed by UPAC investigators. Radio-Canada reported that he had a USB key containing borough information in his pocket when his body was found.

Mr. Lafrenière said the arrest of the mayor of Montreal shows corruption and collusion will no longer be tolerated. “No one is above the law, and you can’t hide from the law,” he said.